Preliminary study to evaluate Emi emotional interaction with two young children

This article will focus on research in the field of emotional interaction, for the EmotiRob project, to maintain non-verbal interaction with chidren from 4 to 8 years old. The studies carried out on perception and emotional synthesis have allowed us to develop an experimental stuffed robot, Emi, using an emotional model, iGrace, allowing for an emotional reaction based on the speech of the user. Our iGrace model can also be used with all kinds of systems which have emotion in the environment. We begin the article with a presentation of the MAPH and EmotiRob project. Then, we will quickly describe the different hypotheses we have used for the iGrace emotional model and the Emi robotics conception. We conclude with a preliminary study we began with 2 children to evaluate interaction with Emi.